Is the right too right, and the left too left for you? These days, most folks are voting against someone, not voting for anyone. Unfortunately, the winner seems to take his victory as some sort of mandate to actually do all the crap he promised. They never get the idea that they won the election because the voters hated the other guy more.

Every election, we get the same choice, death by hanging, or death by firing squad. We need another choice, one that isn’t just another way to execute ourselves (electrocution, anyone?), but one that frees us to live in prosperity. We will not accomplish that by starting a movement that is so far to the right of the right, nor so far left to the left, that we cause the election to fall to the opposite side of what we want, and thus kill our movement.

We need a party that is in the middle, so that getting votes doesn’t throw any elections to either side. We need a party that isn’t beholden to special interest fringe groups that gets their candidate through the primary, only to find out that this isn’t what the people want, and so now needs to figure out a way to move to the center without pissing off the base. We need a party that starts in the middle, and ends in the middle. We need a party that can grow from one election to the next, until the Rest Of America gets the power we need for real change!

America needs it’s politicians to quit spending money like it’s a drunken sailor in port after a hard year at sea. We need to look at every thing we spend money on, including military. Nothing should be off the table at this point, as our debt is over 13 trillion dollars debt and counting. One of our largest expenditures is the interest on the debt. No need to figure out which party is responsible for the spending, they both are. The party is over, now we need to clean up the spilled beer, empty the ashtrays, and mop up the floor. We need to pay off the debt. Now.

4) Fine companies that outsource jobs, and use the fines for tax breaks for small businesses to hire workers on United States soil. Let’s get America working again!

5) Raise taxes if needed. America is going over a cliff. Read the section dedicated to the subject of tax cuts for reasons why this needs to be done, or else the United States is done for.

6) Not have the first party caucus in Iowa every four years. That is how you wind up with farm subsidies and ethanol. How stupid is that? Iowa looks out after Iowa. Why does Iowa have this much power? Can’t they just have their stupid caucus and have no one show up, especially the media?

Yes, we can raise the retirement age. However, this implies that there will be jobs available for the millions of workers no longer able to leave the work force. And it implies that folks will be healthy enough to work that long. And it wildly assumes that age discrimination will suddenly disappear. And it even more wildly assumes that people won’t vote against you if you cut the benefits they’ve been promised their entire working lives. How about quit robbing from the Social Security Trust Fund to fund other useless spending? How about giving the healthy ones a check to do something, clean up parks, work on our crumbling infrastructure, or whatever? Someone needs to hold the traffic signs during highway construction. Certainly someone has a better idea than to gut Social Security by allowing young workers to lose their retirement in the stock markets!Back To Top

Why is no one screaming to the rafters about this? How many bridges must fall down, how many potholes must we hit before someone realizes that this stuff must be maintained, and occasionally be replaced? Can’t we use the unemployed, welfare recipients, and homeless to help fix this? Why do the Republicans not want to spend money on our crumbling infrastructure? Instead they want to cut taxes, since that is the cure for all ills. Like that will help hold up a bridge. This is an outrage!

Republicans bashed Obamacare, then put forth their own plan that included Obamacare goals, such as no denying coverage for preexisting conditions, or dropping insurance coverage once you get sick, the 2 most costly things in there. But they didn’t say how they would pay for it, unless you really want them to take away your right to sue when they leave a scapel in your gut during your surgury. Either you want these things and want to pay for it, or you don’t. Don’t pretend like you will repeal all the things you don’t like, and keep the most expensive parts without paying for them. Not gonna happen. Republicans certainly didn’t come up with any better plan to cut health care costs, nor did they try. They want to leave it as it was, totally broken. Either come up with a better plan that isn’t the same old, same old (let the market fix it! They’ve been doing a great job!), or shut the hell up. Oh, and another thing: if someone chooses to not have health insurance, and they need to go to the hospital, they need to pay up front. Or not get served. The average family in America pays an extra $1000 per year in higher premiums to foot the bill for these deadbeats that clog up our emergency rooms.

America is up to it’s eyeballs in debt. The Republican response is to cut taxes at every opportunity. They give lip service to spending, but in the past have only the strength to cut taxes, not spending. We need to pay off the debt. Cutting taxes does not accomplish this goal. If you spend out of control, you need to tax out of control, else the people won’t go along with the spending cuts. If you cut taxes and not spending, and put the spending on America’s charge card, eventually America goes broke. How is that patriotic?

Look at the national debt since Reagan cut taxes in 1981 without cutting spending… Notice any patterns?
For 30 years the Republican mantra has been how great tax cuts are. How you get more revenue by reducing taxes. Yada yada yada. As you can see from the graph, Republicans have been basically telling lies to buy votes to get power at all costs. These tax cuts reduce revenues and results in a massive increase in borrowing. Obviously, if tax cuts resulted in more revenue, then the graph would not look like this. If you don’t understand that, go consult the nearest 3rd grader.

In 2009, the United States spent 43% of the world share on military spending. The next country, China, spent 6.6%. Does the United States really need to spend that amount on military spending? Probably not. Yet the Republicans insist on not cutting anything whatsoever from the defense budget. Instead, they increase defense spending whenever possible. Should a politician dare to suggest cuts to the military budget, he’s unpatriotic. I’ll tell you what is patriotic. Not spending the country into oblivion. We need to be economically strong to survive the long term. We cannot only make cuts to non-military spending, we need to make the hard choices as to a realistic amount to spend to defend our country. 661 billion dollars a year, and we can’t even fight in 2 dinky counties at once without walking away embarrassed afterwards. Cut 250 billion a year from this bloated elephant!

OK, so you’re a big multinational conglomerate. Your ideal profit scenario is to hire folks in underdeveloped countries where you can pay them squat, and fire them when they get sick from making widgets in your sweat factory. Then you want to bring in your sub-par merchandise into a rich country, without paying duties or tariffs. This way, you can put any manufacturers producing widgets in that rich county out of business, and basically take advantage of the situation. To pull this off, you need to donate like crazy to any dominant political parties so they are afraid to challenge you. Hell, as long as you’re at it, you might as well insist on some tax breaks for all of this, right? Let’s give this ideal scenario of yours a noble sounding name, say something like, ‘Free Trade’. But what big, rich country is stupid enough, and has corrupt enough politicians to pull this heist off? Hmmm…

Free trade was a noble experiment. Now that it’s festered it’s way into the very fabric of the American way of life, and lost us so many jobs and cost us so much, it’s time we take that dog out to the back forty, and put it out of it’s misery. Lets get those jobs back. Cheap labor may be great for mass producing great piles of junk, while piling up great profits for the multinational corporations, but it’s killing America greatly. Why do both the Democrats and Republicans keep patting themselves on the back for working on new trade agreements when it’s obvious that they are robbing America blind? Free trade isn’t free!

OK, you’re a huge conglomerate farm corporation, and even though you already make big bucks through government handouts, er, subsidies, you of course need more money. Some other conglomerate came up with a hoax called, ‘Free Trade’, and then set up a farm in Mexico using any pesticides and chemicals they want, with workers they barely pay, without import tariffs, and they are seriously eating into your subsidy profits. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get the government to make a law where someone has to buy your corn crop, and waste it as a fuel source, instead of using it for food? Damn, that would raise the price of corn way up, wouldn’t it? So even though the cost of gas would remain the same, tax payer money would subsidize it, thus actually raising the cost, and then the tax payer would be rewarded with much higher food costs! What a great idea! Lucky thing this great county of ours doesn’t have enough corrupt politicians for you to pull that heist off. Right? Doh!

Both Republicans and Democrats show up and pay homage to Iowa every four years, and Iowa farmers pretty much get to choose our presidential candidates for us. So they get their farm subsidies, we wind up with subsidized ethanol in our tanks at tax payers expense, and groan at the supermarket at the skyrocketing cost of food. OK, I know paying money to radicals in the middle east is a bad idea, but using food to make our cars go is even more wrong. This is the best idea that our politicians can come up with? Stop that! Iowa has 7 crappy electoral votes, they shouldn’t be running the country. Ignore them!

“Defend Marriage!” is the mantra of politicians against gay marriage. OK, let’s be real for a second. Marriage has a failure rate of 50%. Half of those left married are miserable, but just too lazy to get a divorce. Defending marriage is like defending the Alamo, a noble idea, but still a losing proposition. Having gay people marry won’t hurt marriage one bit more than it hurts already. If you really want to defend marriage, then ban divorce attorneys, not gay folks.

If a gay person wants to serve in the military, for crying out loud, let them.

Other Gay Rights? Sorry, but after the above 2 issues, gay folks need to fend for themselves. And give us back the rainbow! Who said you could steal it?

This is the top issue that Democrats are on the wrong side of, except of course, spending. Stop illegal immigration. No amnesty. Kick out the illegals. Deport them all. Build huge fences. Make sure anyone caught is put on a list of persons never to be granted citizenship, green card or visa of the United States. Then open up legalized immigration wide and far (not just folks immediately south of us), the way it should be. America needs legal immigrants. Git ‘er done, and get it behind us. ‘Nuff said

The courts decided this one long ago. They said banning abortion is unconstitutional. The Republicans won’t fix anything, since they can count on floods of voters every election to come out and vote for them in exchange for a little lip service. Fact: For 6 years Republicans held both houses of congress, the white house, and had a majority on the supreme court. What did they do? Nothing. Nada. Other than making sure no federal money is spent on abortions, what else can they do? It simply isn’t in their best interest. Making an issue of it in every election isn’t going to change that. Voting either Democrat or Republican had the same effect on the abortion issue, even if the Republicans get folks all worked up about it. Don’t be naive. Leave it out of our political discussion. Stick a fork in it, it’s done.

War On Drugs? Guess what? We lost. Legalize marijuana, tax it, and learn from that. Analyze what, if any, other drugs should be legalized. Some drugs should never be legalized. Selling those drugs should carry the death penalty. But filling up prison cells with potheads isn’t helping. Lumping light drugs with hard drugs isn’t helping.

War costs us money. Tons and tons of it. Shouldn’t we be a little more careful about the wars we start?

Constitutionally, only congress can declare war. Specifically:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Once war is declared. the president, as commander in chief, commands the troops. It is wrong for the president to start a war, period.

Congress has declared war 5 times. They have not since WWII. Yet we find ourselves in wars repeatedly. We get into them because the president puts troops in harms way, then acts like congress isn’t patriotic if they don’t authorize and fund the war. In this way, the president is claiming authority only granted to congress, and congress puts up with it. This needs to stop. If it’s important enough to get into an actual war over, then congress needs to declare a war. No other form of war authorization is constitutional. The WAR Powers resolution of 1973 is clearly unconstitutional. Allowing the president to wage war for 2 months without specific congressional authorization? Only congress could think that is right!

The constitution grants congress and only congress the right to regulate money. Specifically:

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

Nowhere in the constitution is there any mention of ‘The FED’, who congress unconstitutionally grants the right to print our nations money, then ‘loan’ it to us, at an interest rate that the FED controls. The FED is a loan sharking business, period. A big loan shark, but still a loan shark. Leave it to congress to think this is OK. Even allowing Nixon to take us off the gold standard was clearly unconstitutional for a president to do, yet congress let that slide. How the hell did he get that kind of power? When is congress going to grow a pair, and quit relinquishing it’s constitutional duties?

I know plenty of folks who think America is on the wrong path. But I don’t know a soul who isn’t patriotic. You aren’t more patriotic than anyone else because you don’t want to pay taxes and you have a ‘Don’t tread On Me!’ tattoo. So why do we let our politicians get away with acting like they are more patriotic than the guy standing next to them? Occasionally one will make a speech or offer a law against flag burning, as of there is a huge problem inside of our country with that. But it sure makes that politician seem more patriotic than his opponent, doesn’t it? They aren’t more patriotic because they belong to one party and not the other. Let the issues rule, not the bullshit.

I once picked up a hitchhiker who went on and on against flag burning, how we should punish anyone burning the American flag, throw them out of the country, ect. When I finally got a word in edge wise, I mentioned that it is proper flag etiquette to burn a tattered flag. At this, the proud hitchhiker announced he had attended 3 flag burnings! He didn’t see the irony.

Not as big a deal as most, but a shining example of govt overkill none the less. Why screw everyone up by throwing off their internal clock like that? If I want jet lag, I’ll fly to Tahiti. Get rid of it.